Multi-center evaluation of radiomics and deep learning to stratify malignancy risk of IPMNs

Purpose: Distinguishing high-risk intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) from low-risk lesions remains a clinical challenge, often resulting in unnecessary procedures due to limited specificity of current methods. While radiomics and deep learning (DL) have been explored for pancreatic cancer, cyst-level malignancy risk stratification of IPMNs remains untapped. Methods: Our multi-institutional assessed the feasibility of AI for predicting IPMN dysplasia grade using cyst-level image features using 359 T2-weighted (T2W) MRI images from seven centers. We developed and compared 2D and 3D radiomics-only, DL-only, and radiomics-DL fusion models using expert radiologist scoring as a baseline reference. Model performance was evaluated using held-out test data. Results: The radiomics-DL fusion model showed the highest discriminatory ability on the test set AUC of 69.2%, outperforming the radiomics-only model, AUC of 66.5%. Expert accuracy varied widely from 37.4% to 66.7%, and the inter-rater agreement varied as well with weighted Cohen’s kappa coefficients of 0.33–0.67. Conclusion: The fusion model, which combines DL with radiomics features from routine T2W MRI, shows promise for objective, cyst-level risk stratification of IPMNs in a multi-center cohort, outperforming radiomics-only models and nearly matching expert radiologists using only T2W and T1-weighted (T1W) sequences. While performance requires improvement for standalone clinical use, this approach offers a scalable, non-invasive method to potentially improve diagnostic accuracy and reduce unnecessary surgical interventions.